Jeep Gladiator Rhetorical Analysis Essay

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Countless larger companies utilize powerful rhetoric strategies to create a certain image of their product and convince consumers to purchase said product. The car company Jeep aired an advertisement during the 2020 Super Bowl, which attempted to sell one of their newer Jeep Gladiators. The company based their advertisement on a familiar and comical movie and included widely-known actors. The advertisement included fun dialogue and eye-catching imagery that allowed audiences to stay intrigued in the story and idea being expressed. The advertisement portrays to all possible consumers, through effective strategies, that the Jeep Gladiator aids drivers in making each day new and exciting. Throughout this advertisement, the producers compare …show more content…

Including a universally known and respected celebrity portrays to a consumer that the product is reliable, as well as used by a person that is very admired. The chosen celebrities in the Jeep advertisement were actors Bill Murray and Stephen Tobolowsky. These two actors are very popular and have acted in countless cinematic productions, including GroundHog Day. Including celebrities in advertisements is a very effective rhetorical strategy and has been continually used by many other large companies to increase sales. Micheal M. Tollefson explains more about the inclusion of celebrities in advertisements and intertextuality in his article, “You’re not you when you’re in a snickers’ ad: Celebrity, intertextuality, and masculinity.” Tollefson explained in his article that celebrity endorsements are sometimes a form of intertextuality in advertisements. It was stated on page thirty-seven, “Advertisers expect audiences to combine celebrity knowledge with product information. Ad producers borrow meanings from the celebrities so that viewers interpret the product in line with those meanings,” (Tollefson, 37). The advertisers that created the advertisement included the actors Bill Murray and Stephen Tobolowsky to relate the exterior knowledge of those celebrities and relate it to the product they are selling. The actors are known across multiple age-groups which allows the company to express that the Jeep Gladiator is a respectable vehicle just as Bill Murray and Stephen Tobolowsky are respectable